The Sheep Walker's Daughter by Sydney Avey

Author:Sydney Avey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Basque;Euskara;Euskal;Family separation;Family reunion;Heritage;Genealogy;Wholesome Romance;California;Spain;Strong women
Publisher: Torchflame Books
Published: 2017-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

13 — Valerie, Etxea

H Valerie I

13

Etxea

T he farmhouse is nothing like I expected. I pictured Alaya living in a house about the size of Lita’s bungalow in Los Altos. Instead, the house is an imposing two-story caserío vasco with an open trellis of oak beams separated by brick and stone that looks out at the barns and sheds that dot the property. The outbuildings are spare of ornamentation save for iron fittings and carved corbels that give the compound the look of something old adapted for modern use. This is a working farm reminiscent of a watercolor I once saw where expansive grazing pastures and an apple orchard washed across a canvas. Where the apples fell, industry sprouted in many different forms.

Alaya is out the door and down the porch steps almost before I get out of the car. Along with a tour of the grounds, I get a lesson in history, ecology, and economics. Standing in the empty lambing barn, she explains that the sheep are still in the high country. They will come back in the late fall and the lambs will be born in December and brought to tables in the spring. The herd is mostly dairy sheep; she shows me stacks of cheese rounds aging on shelves in another building, and an apple-cider operation in yet another building.

Inside the house, she introduces me to her husband, Elazar. He sits at a large plank table in the kitchen with papers and record books spread before him. We chat easily in Spanish about the house. He tells me that the farm belongs to Alaya’s family and that the original house, built four hundred years ago, has been renovated many times to accommodate changes in fashion and use. He has just finished the latest renovation, bringing light through new windows into what was once a dark interior.

We leave Elazar to his paperwork, and Alaya settles me in the living room. She retrieves a large leather album from her desk and sets it in my lap with all the ceremony of a collector presenting an eager bibliophile with a cherished first edition.

“You know, twins run in families,” she says, as I begin to leaf through the pages of photographs. “So I was not surprised when Domeka and Danel were born. They are ten years younger than you are, Valerie. Elazar and I married late and then we waited to have children. The boys are fifteen now. They’re in school today, but they’ll be home later so you can meet them.”

Alaya goes to the kitchen while I leaf through the lives of these cousins I never knew I had. When she returns with two glasses of apple cider, I ask her why my grandfather never returned to the United States to look for his wife and daughter. Alaya gives me a history lesson instead of a satisfying answer.

“We Basques have a long history of exile and return. You discovered that when you researched your book. The Inquisition, the civil war, the

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